


Kiss Me Before You Go

by purplecake



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: A Kiss, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, IN YOUR FACES PARENTS, Karolina isn't taken to Gibborim, cause why not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 21:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13326546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplecake/pseuds/purplecake
Summary: Karolina tells them to go and leave her, but the Runaways don't stay away for long.





	Kiss Me Before You Go

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I absolutely loved the whole season and episode 10 was a-ma-zing. I cannot believe we have been blessed with this AWESOME show. Twenty gayteen is on the go and I am so readdddyyyyy!!!!!!
> 
> p.s i am shit at writing romance stuff, but id like to think im okay at angsty shit. so i tried.

Karolina could feel that this stranger, Jonah, he was like her. Not just like her, but. As she looked at Frank standing with her mother, she knew he wasn't her father, and it tore her heart in two. The light from Jonah's palm, that blasted them all back, she felt the warmth in it, so similar to her own lights, as much as the pain and burn from being hit, and she knew. As he looked at her, building up another attack, Karolina knew she had to do everything to protect her friends. This new found family. To protect  _Nico._

"You guys have to go," she looked to either side, noticing how they all tensed in surprise at her words. "He came for me." As soon as she said it, looking into his eyes, she knew it was true. 

The arguments rose up almost immediately. Alex stared at her for a long moment with gears turning in his head, trying to figure out what she meant. A sharp  _what?_ came out of him, while Chase called her crazy. Despite not saying anything, Gert and Molly's stances were pretty clearly a  _no way_ opinion. Nico, though, she was the most heart breaking. Her words came at Karolina so fast and panicked, she barely understood them. "We're not leaving you!" For a second, Karolina thought back to their kiss, only an hour ago at the dance, the happiness she felt with the girl she loved. She felt that happiness now, having the ability to keep her safe. 

"I'll hold him off and meet you outside, okay?" She felt horrible for the over enthusiasm. She knew that by the power she felt from Jonah, that probably wasn't going to happen. From the look Chase gave her it was definitely not  _okay_ , but there was no time. Karolina could sense Jonah's power rising, ready to be pushed to the edge. If something happened to her friends, she would never forgive herself. After a short pause and a cautious glance at Jonah, she muttered, "It's the only way." 

Nico's eyes quickly filled with tears. Her voice was rough with emotion as she nearly yelled, strands of hair blowing into her face. Karolina longed to raise her hand and brush the hair away. "Don't do this, please! I'm begging you!"  _I'm begging you._ Karolina almost cried right there, but tried her best to keep herself together. Nico stumbling over her words only shattered Karolina's heart more, "You, you can't do this alone!" And she probably couldn't, that's true. Karolina could feel the power Jonah had, and compared with her own only recently discovered abilities, she was probably no match. But for her family, for the girl she loved, she had to try. 

She ignored the voice inside her head, screaming about time which was running out fast. She ignored their parents, and Jonah standing and waiting for them to fight, or run or maybe something else. She turned her body towards Nico, raised her hands to her face. Within seconds, the tears that Nico had kept tight in her eyes dripped onto her cheeks, but Karolina caught them with her thumb and wiped them away in seconds. The end of the world, Jonah and his powers, none of it mattered. 

Karolina lent down at the same time that Nico rose up on her toes, and their lips met halfway. It was longer than their first, in the corridor at the dance, and a lot more desperate. Karolina didn't realise she was crying herself, until her tears fell onto Nico's cheeks. Nico's hands gripped Karolina's shoulders hard, as if never wanting to let go as Karolina gently cradled her face in her warm hands.

It felt like an eternity before Karolina pulled away, wiping both Nico's and her own tears from their faces. The goth looked into her eyes with heart break, frozen and unresponsive as Karolina moved her hands from Nico's face to her shoulders and pushed her softly away. 

Her eyes found Gert's, and the other girl got the message. By the time Karolina was screaming at them to _go, go quickly_ , Gert was already rushing towards Nico and dragging her from the construction site by the elbow, while Nico watched Karolina get further and further away from her, her blue eyes still watch her until they disappeared around the corner, the only sign still of Karolina being the glowing lights that lit up the dark night. 

When the lamp posts around them began to spark and explode, Nico brought herself out of the shock. She wrenched her arm from Gert's fingers and tried to rush backwards from where they came, where Karolina's lights had now been joined by something brighter. Something far more powerful. This time, it was Molly who stopped her, her eyes glowing gold as she collided with Nico and pulled her back in the other direction, towards their car. As the night took over, and the sparks flew over their heads, Nico hid herself behind the body of the car and pressed a hand to her lips. 

A kiss. One that had felt like goodbye.

Nico felt the tears returning to her eyes, but instead pushed them away and stood, determined. The lights at the construction sight were gone, stopped, and with everything around them fried by the EMP, their surrounds were almost pitch black. Alex tried his phone. Nothing. The car didn't turn on, and Gert leaned out with a deep sigh of annoyance. All Nico could focus on was their missing member, and as soon as their surroundings seemed to calm, she rushed around the remainder of the Runaways and began heading back for the construction site. 

She was not leaving Karolina. No matter the danger, she was not going to leave Karolina after her willingness to give her life for theirs. 

Their parents are crowded around something, Nico noticed through the rip in the fence when she sneaked back over to the construction site. They were packed tight around what ever it was, Leslie kneeling on the pavement besides the gathering with her head hidden in her hands. Nico had never seen Karolina's mother so distressed, and the sight made her stomach knot. Gert appeared next to her, Molly on her other side as they joined in watching as their parents turned on each other, yelling and arguing. Their words were so angry and so many they weren't able to distinguish what was being said. It wasn't until Chase appeared behind Nico, overlooking the construction site, did they notice something. 

"Guys," he muttered under his breath. His finger, hand shaking, pointed to something, or rather someone, who was lying on the concrete by the exit to the construction site. Jonah. He looked the same, apart from his unnaturally pale skin and worn features, obvious exhaustion over his face. Alex, who'd ran up just behind Chase, pushed his glasses up to his eyes and took in the way Jonah looked, and frowned. 

"If he's there, then where's Karolina?" At the same time, Tina broke the circle of argument and walked cautiously towards Leslie, placing a hand onto her shoulder. Frank, who'd been staring at whatever had them all arguing, wiped his eyes and ripped something from his hand. From the distance the kids were at, it looked like a see-through rubber glove.

Finally they could see what had the parents so distressed. 

It was Karolina, and at the sight of her, body limp and not moving, Nico almost collapsed. Her knees almost buckled, but she lent on the fence with her fingers through the hoops. Gert's hand settled on her shoulder in a form of comfort. "Karolina..." she heard Chase's heart broken whisper, as Molly next to her tensed. She watched as her hands closed into fists around the fence pole, crushing it swiftly. Gert's voice was weak and breaking as she whispered, "Is she...?" 

"No!" Alex's voice came next, but it wasn't distressed. It was relieved. He nudged his way past them all to the fence and raised his arm, pointing. "She's breathing."

That's all Nico needed to hear. She swirled around the fence, and surged towards the gathering of their parents. Alex tried to grab her, but she slipped from his grip quickly. Gert clicked her fingers once, and the dinosaur's heavy feet followed after them as they walked up. Nico saw the staff, lying on the concrete where Jonah had ripped it from her mother's hands and discarded it. With her eyes closed for a second for concentration, Nico heard a whistle of sound as the staff sailed through the air and crashed into her hand, unfolding and beginning to glow with a prick to her finger. She barely noticed the pain. 

Tina saw them approaching first. Her eyes widened at the sight of Nico with the staff, but this time she made no move to take it from her daughter. She just stood, frozen. Leslie didn't look up until Frank mumbled some incoherent words, and then she scrambled up and watched them, the remaining five Runaways making their stance. 

"We came for Karolina." Nico tried to make her voice as steady as possible, but the sight of Karolina, her face paler and more exhausted than Jonah's made her anxious. 

The Wilders stepped up, eyes searching Alex, to see if he was hurt. The Yorkes' did the same, but their eyes stayed on the dinosaur, which seemed to glare the same way that Gert did, the same ferocity and anger wept up in its cat like eyes. Leslie moved to kneel at her daughter's side. Her hands hovered over her face, but didn't touch her. "How could I let this happen," she mumbled, and their hearts would have broken for Karolina's mother if not for what they learnt, and what they knew. 

"Move them," Nico commanded, and the staff did its job, an invisible force shoving their parents from their stances in front of an unconscious Karolina. "Keep them there." The staff flickered in response, and their parents froze, only their eyes moving as they followed their children, almost running towards Karolina. 

She was cold. Freezing in fact, and that worried all of them way too much. Karolina was never cold. It seemed abnormal before, but after her powers came to light (literally) it made a lot more sense. Now it was like she'd been passed out outside during the winter, her skin almost icy to the touch. She looked exhausted despite being unconscious, eyes sunken and rounded with dark shadows and heavy bags. Her hair wasn't its usual blonde, and her skin was as white as a piece of paper. It looked like life had literally been sucked out of her. 

"Holy shit," said Molly, and Gert only repeated what her sister had said, before letting out a measly, "language," while her eyes remained on Karolina. Nico looked up and found Leslie Dean's eyes looking at her. She raised her staff. "Release her." 

Leslie Dean moved almost immediately towards them, and knelt by her daughter again, with one hand on her forehead, the other on her heart. "She's lost a lot of energy." Karolina's mother breathed a deep sigh of relief, and tears started falling again as she covered her mouth. It took her a second to compose herself, but the Runaways only watched, waiting for something. "She should be okay. She's healing herself, but Jonah took a lot from her." Her eyes found the man in question, feet away, but in a far better state than Karolina. All their eyes fell on the man, and a colourful list of creative swears escaped from Gert. Nico nodded in agreement, despite having understood almost none of them, and Molly smirked a little, while she nudged Gert and mumbled, " _language,_ " in a mocking scolding voice. 

Nico's arm was grabbed by Leslie, and the rest of the teens reacted almost immediately. Gert brought her dinosaur over, ready to pounce. Chase raised his fistigons, despite them being fried by the EMP Karolina and Jonah had produced, and Molly's eyes glowed gold as she raised her arms. Leslie got the hint, and moved her hand off of Nico, but she looked straight into her eyes with her own swimming in tears and regret. It made Nico pause. 

"Take her, far, far, from here," she pleaded, and Nico startled at the desperation. "Jonah will kill you all, and take her from us if he gets to her. Take her, keep her away." Her eyes found Jonah again. "We will get rid of him. When it's safe, we will find you." Nico looked up at their parents. At the Yorkes', and the Wilders and her own parents, staring down at them all. Mrs Stein had fear in her eyes, obviously objective to the idea, as were the Yorkes', eyes struggling. But her own parents, their eyes were filled with pride. She didn't care much for it, she told herself, but it made her confident at once, and she turned to the Gert, Molly, Alex and Chase. 

"Grab a hold of me." They did as she asked, each of them grabbing either her shoulder or her arm. Nico lent forward and grabbed a hold of Karolina. She looked to the staff, the glowing ring reflected in her eyes. "Get us out of here."

Their parents unfroze, falling to the concrete as their children disappeared from the construction site, to somewhere they didn't know. Hopefully to somewhere safe. 

They ended up in Arizona. Nico remembered travelling there on holiday once, back when Amy was still alive, which was the only connection she could find as to why the staff brought them there. They risked using their credit cards once, to pull as much money from their bank accounts as possible, and then tossed them away and had the staff teleport them again. It brought them to a beach in Florida.  

With all their money put together, they managed to rent a room in a cheap hotel. They split off a bit for groceries, and hid the rest away, saving it until they could find a better solution. 

Karolina stayed unconscious for four long days. Her skin grew in colour by the first day, and her hair felt healthier and thicker by the second. The bruising around her eyes faded, and by the fourth day, although she still looked exhausted, life had somewhat returned to her features. 

They wanted to save up as much money as they could, so they got a room with a double bed, where Karolina had lay unconscious, while the rest of them had settled for the floor. In the darkness, when everyone was asleep, Nico would shuffle in next to Karolina, feeling as the cold of her skin became warmer and warmer by the day. No one questioned Nico when they found her asleep next to Karolina in the mornings, as well as how nobody mentioned the kiss they'd seen between the two at the construction site not even Alex.

Except Gert, who'd found Nico out in the corridor of the motel they were staying at one night, just staring ahead, thinking. 

"Chase kissed her, you know?" Gert had said to her, and Nico turned her head slightly, confused at the point of the comment. Gert smirked. "Yeah,  _he_ kissed  _her_ , and she was so gay and in love with you that she called me during the crisis with his dad because she was too anxious to be alone with him." Gert laughed. "My point is, I'm really glad that you and her..." Gert trailed off slightly, sighing. "I'm glad you two worked out. You should have seen they way she looked at you, I thought I was going to barf." Gert pulled a disgusted face, and Nico let out a small laugh at her.

But the thought of Karolina still laying there, four days later, still unconscious, dulled her mood. Her chest clenched with worry. 

Gert seemed to notice, because she stopped laughing and placed a soft hand on Nico's shoulder. "Karolina is the strongest girl I know, I mean, " Gert raised her hands to the ceiling and yelled, "She glows for God's sake!"

A lady a few doors down lent her head out of her door and yelled back for her to shut up. "Sorry!" Gert smiled at Nico, who watched her with amused eyes.

"What I was trying to say, is that there is no way that girl is ever going to stay down." And with those being her last few words, Gert pulled away from the wall where they had been leaning, and went back into their room, where Molly was watching TV and eating chips, lazily slumped next to a sleeping Karolina. 

The boys had gone out to get some more food, especially chicken for the hungry dinosaur hidden in their bathroom. And Nico just took in the silence. She thought about everything that had happened. About her parents, and what they saw them do. About Amy, and Alex's lies. About Karolina, and the strange feeling she had from her heart to her stomach every time they would make eye contact. The first time she'd felt it, surprisingly, was after she'd kissed Alex. Karolina's interruption had started an unimaginable guilt to form in her chest at the crushed look in Karolina's eyes. Now she knew how she was suppose to feel. She could still feel her lips tingling from Karolina's kiss, her cheeks burning where her warm hands had framed her face. 

The memory of the glowing girl, kissing her goodbye with tears in her eyes as she shoved her away gently made Nico short for breath with emotion. 

Her walk down memory lane was interrupted by Molly almost knocking down the door in her excitement to get out. She rounded the corner in a sprint, with a wide grin on her face, and when she saw Nico, she screamed something incomprehensible and pulled her towards their room. Inside, Gert was leaning over the double bed, hands wrapped around Karolina.

Karolina, who was peeling her eyes awake, as she told Gert to help her up with a scratchy voice. She still looked exhausted, but beautiful as ever. Nico swore she'd heard Gert complain  _of course she's still gorgeous_. As soon as Nico saw her blinking and trying to get her bearings, a sob escaped her throat. 

Karolina looked towards the door, and a smile pulled at the corners of her mouth at the sight of Nico in the doorway. "Hey, Nico." She huffed out, energy sapping out of her with only a few words, but her smile only got bigger as Nico got closer and closer to her with eyes bleary with tears. "Hey." She choked out, and gently wrapped her arms around Karolina's neck, burying her face into her shoulder. 

"I'm so glad you're okay," she mumbled against the cotton shirt they'd changed Karolina into. "I'm glad you're all okay," Karolina responded, pulling back slightly so that she could look Nico in the eyes. "I told you to go." There was warning in her voice, but a playful smile on her face. 

"You're an idiot." And then Nico was hugging her again, tighter this time. 

Chase and Alex came back to the three girls sat on the double bed, surrounding Karolina as she slowly drank and ate. Chase dropped the bags of food they were holding immediantly and grabbed Karolina, hugging her tight before she protested with a laugh and a  _ow_ into his shoulder. Alex walked up cautiously, but Karolina opened her arms to him, and they shared a hug too. He smiled at her as she patted his shoulder, and he thanked her quietly as he pulled away. 

The Runaways all fell asleep on the double bed that night, surrounded by food and an old black and white movie playing on the motel TV. 

When Nico woke up the next morning, Karolina was missing. Her heart clenched in fear, and she quickly shuffled on her shoes and skipped anxiously outside, to the patio outside the motel by the door to see if Karolina had headed out. 

The girl was leaning against the patio fence, staring off into the rising sunset. It sent an orange hue across the sky, and for a second Nico just watched Karolina, her eyes closed and face up as the wind blew back her hair softly. Nico took her black scarf from around her neck, and slipped it around Karolina's. The girl didn't flinch in shock to her presence like Nico had expected, but pulled the girl closer to her and linked their arms. "Beautiful, isn't it?" 

"What you did for us," Nico unlinked their arms and started nervously picking at her fingernails, subconsciously pacing the short length of the patio. "It was amazing. But oh my god," she paused, and huffed, turning around to face Karolina. "It was so stupid! You could have died!" It wasn't until then that she caught a glimpse of Karolina's face. The other girl's eyes had been staring at her as if star struck, lost, with a soft smile on her face. "Why are you looking at me like that?" 

Karolina hobbled towards Nico, steadying her still weak body by placing her hands over Nico's shoulders. "I could have died, you are right. But if I had, it would have been worth it, because it would have been so my friends, and the girl that I have been in love with for  _years_ , would live." 

Nico had stopped breathing at those words. With the sunrise travelling the sky behind them, Nico reached up, on her toes, and kissed Karolina firmly. Her worries, of their futures all flushed away. It would all be okay, she thought, as Karolina kissed her back.

As long as the Runaways had each other. As long as they were together, no matter what. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well there it is!!!! How it was alright. Open to criticism, plez leave me any feedback tell me how ya feel about the finally, anything ya like!!!   
> I bloody love these two!!!!
> 
> Tumblr is anacefromspace : DDDDDD


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